Is there no sense of outrage and shame against such a phenomenon among our elite? What can be done to stem the tide? Is it corruption as it is known in the West? These disturbing questions and more are answered in this book.

Drawing on the work of Karl Mannheim and the sociology of knowledge, Alatas analyses the origins and functions of such myths in the creation and reinforcement of colonial ideology and capitalism.

Professor Alatas is a pioneer in the study of corruption in Asia. This volume represents 30 years' intellectual outpourings on the complexities of corruption and the damage it does to the social fabrics of developing countries.

This is not a new question--in fact, it was considered at length as far back as 1971, in Syed Hussein Alatas's slim but devastating volume Thomas Stamford Raffles: Schemer or Reformer?